Load balancing for ip failover

ABSTRACT

Techniques are provided for load balancing for IP failover. A backend address of a first node is identified as a routing destination to which a request is to be routed by a load balancer based upon a load balancer rule mapping a frontend address, specified by the request as a request destination, to the backend address of the first node. The request is routed to a primary network interface of the first node using the backend address. The first node has a loopback interface with an address matching the frontend address for routing the request to a destination data structure based upon the request maintaining the frontend address as the request destination. Health probes are used by the load balancer for detecting a failure of the first node in order to failover to routing requests to a second backend address of a second node.

RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims priority to and is a continuation of U.S.application Ser. No. 16/658,280, filed on Oct. 21, 2019, now allowed,titled “LOAD BALANCING FOR IP FAILOVER,” which claims priority to U.S.Provisional Patent Application, titled “HIGH AVAILABILITY FOR CLOUD,SHARED STORAGE WITH LOCKING, AND IP FAILOVER USING NETWORK LOADBALANCER”, filed on Oct. 20, 2018 and accorded U.S. Application No.:62/748,409, which are incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND

A computing environment, such as a cloud computing environment, can beused to host nodes, such as virtual machines, that provide services toclient devices that connect to the computing environment over a network.The computing environment may host a load balancer configured todistribute requests from client devices to various nodes based upon loadinformation. Typically, load balancers distribute the load of processingrequests to a plurality of nodes to alleviate bottlenecks and improveperformance.

A service provider that deploys the nodes into the computing environment(e.g., a storage service provider that uses the cloud computingenvironment to host virtual machines to provide storage services toclients of the storage service provider) may desire to provide faulttolerance for the clients. If a node that is actively servicing requestsencounters an issue, such as a failure, then the service provider wouldwant to failover to a partner node that can then service requests thatwould otherwise be directed to the failed node. Failing over from thefailed node to the partner node may involve moving a network interface(e.g., an IP configuration) of the failed node to the partner node.Unfortunately, this can take minutes to perform, resulting in clientdata access disruption, application timeouts for applications relying onaccess to the data, and client data loss. Thus, current failovercapabilities of nodes hosted with these computing environments willviolate recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives(RPO).

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an example computing environmentin which an embodiment of the invention may be implemented.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a network environment withexemplary node computing devices.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary node computingdevice.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart illustrating an example method for load balancingfor IP failover.

FIG. 5A is a block diagram illustrating an example system for loadbalancing for IP failover, where a first node is in an active state anda second node is in a standby state.

FIG. 5B is a block diagram illustrating an example system for loadbalancing for IP failover, where a second node has taken over for afailed first node.

FIG. 6 is an example of a computer readable medium in which anembodiment of the invention may be implemented.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Some examples of the claimed subject matter are now described withreference to the drawings, where like reference numerals are generallyused to refer to like elements throughout. In the following description,for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth inorder to provide an understanding of the claimed subject matter. It maybe evident, however, that the claimed subject matter may be practicedwithout these specific details. Nothing in this detailed description isadmitted as prior art.

Nodes, such as virtual machines that provide storage services for clientdevices, can be configured according to a high availabilityconfiguration where a first node is a primary partner that activelyprocesses requests from client devices and a second node is a secondarypartner that can takeover for the first node if the first node fails.Failing over from the first node to the second node during takeover(failover) may involve migrating an IP address configuration of thefirst node to the second node so that client devices are subsequentlyrouted to the second node instead of the failed first node afterfailover. Unfortunately, when the nodes are hosted within certaincomputing environments, such as a cloud computing environment maintaineda 3^(rd) party cloud service provider different than a provider of thenodes such as a storage service provider, failover of the IP addressconfiguration can take minutes. This long failover duration results inclient data access disruption, application timeouts for applicationsrelying on access to the data, and client data loss. Thus, currentfailover capabilities of nodes hosted with these computing environmentswill violate recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery pointobjectives (RPO).

Accordingly, as provided herein, failover between nodes hosted withinthese types of computing environments can be performed in a relativelyshort period of time such as in seconds. This is accomplished bycontrolling a load balancer with load balancer rules that areimplemented to perform failover between nodes. Failover can be performedbecause clients can still send requests with a same frontend addressthat is maintained within the requests as a destination addressregardless of whether the load balancer routes the requests to a firstnode at a first backend address during normal operation or a second nodeat a second backend address during failover from the first node to thesecond node. This is accomplished using the load balancer rules formapping the frontend address to the backend addresses, along with usinghealth probes and health probe definitions for determining whether anode has failed such that a loopback interface with an address matchingthe frontend address should be migrated along with a destination datastructure from the failed first node to the second node.

Faster failover between nodes hosted within a cloud computingenvironment is also enabled through the use of health probes. Healthprobes are transmitted by the load balancer to ports of the nodes. Thehealth probes are then routed to health probe processes (e.g., daemons)that will respond with an indication of whether the nodes areoperational (e.g., an acknowledgment will be sent if a health probe isreceived and a node is operational, otherwise, no acknowledgment will besent which indicates that the node might not be operational). If thefirst node encounters an issue, then the second node can detect thissituation (e.g., based upon a loss of communication over an interconnectover which the first node and the second node communicate within thecloud computing environment) and perform a failover.

During the failover, the second node starts listening to the port of thefirst node for health probes in place of the first node listening on theport for the health probes, and a health probe process of the secondnode will respond to the load balancer that the second node has takenover for the first node. Also, a destination data structure (e.g., avolume) within which data was being stored by the first node on behalfof the client devices is migrated to the second node along with aloopback interface having an address matching the frontend address usedby the client devices to send requests to the cloud computingenvironment to access the destination data structure. Because theloopback interface with the address matching the frontend address ismigrated to the second node, the client devices can continue to sendrequests using the frontend address as the destination address while theload balancer routes the requests to a second backend address of thesecond node instead of to a first backend address of the first nodebased upon the load balancer rules indicating that requests with thefrontend address should be routed to the second backend address when thefirst node has failed. In this way, failover to the second node can beperformed in a short period of time such as within seconds. This reduceany client data access disruption, and also allows for recovery timeobjectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPO) to be met so thatclient applications relying on access to the data do not timeout witherrors.

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an example operating environment 100 inwhich an embodiment of the techniques described herein may beimplemented. In one example, the techniques described herein may beimplemented within a client device 128, such as a laptop, a tablet, apersonal computer, a mobile device, a server, a virtual machine, awearable device, etc. In another example, the techniques describedherein may be implemented within one or more nodes, such as a first node130 and/or a second node 132 within a first cluster 134, a third node136 within a second cluster 138, etc. A node may comprise a storagecontroller, a server, an on-premise device, a virtual machine, hardware,software, or combination thereof. The one or more nodes may beconfigured to manage the storage and access to data on behalf of theclient device 128 and/or other client devices. In another example, thetechniques described herein may be implemented within a distributedcomputing platform 102 such as a cloud computing environment (e.g., acloud storage environment, a multi-tenant platform, a hyperscaleinfrastructure comprising scalable server architectures and virtualnetworking, etc.) configured to manage the storage and access to data onbehalf of client devices and/or nodes.

In yet another example, at least some of the techniques described hereinare implemented across one or more of the client device 128, the one ormore nodes, and/or the distributed computing platform 102. For example,the client device 128 may transmit operations, such as data operationsto read data and write data and metadata operations (e.g., a create fileoperation, a rename directory operation, a resize operation, a setattribute operation, etc.), over a network 126 to the first node 130 forimplementation by the first node 130 upon storage. The first node 130may store data associated with the operations within volumes or otherdata objects/structures hosted within locally attached storage, remotestorage hosted by other computing devices accessible over the network126, storage provided by the distributed computing platform 102, etc.The first node 130 may replicate the data and/or the operations to othercomputing devices, such as to the second node 132, the third node 136, avirtual machine executing within the distributed computing platform 102,etc., so that one or more replicas of the data are maintained. Forexample, the third node 136 may host a destination storage volume thatis maintained as a replica of a source storage volume of the first node130. Such replicas can be used for disaster recovery and failover.

In an embodiment, the techniques described herein are implemented by astorage operating system or are implemented by a separate module thatinteracts with the storage operating system. The storage operatingsystem may be hosted by the client device, 128, a node, the distributedcomputing platform 102, or across a combination thereof. In an example,the storage operating system may execute within a virtual machine, ahyperscaler, or other computing environment. The storage operatingsystem may implement a storage file system to logically organize datawithin storage devices as one or more storage objects and provide alogical/virtual representation of how the storage objects are organizedon the storage devices. A storage object may comprise any logicallydefinable storage element stored by the storage operating system (e.g.,a volume stored by the first node 130, a cloud object stored by thedistributed computing platform 102, etc.). Each storage object may beassociated with a unique identifier that uniquely identifies the storageobject. For example, a volume may be associated with a volume identifieruniquely identifying that volume from other volumes. The storageoperating system also manages client access to the storage objects.

The storage operating system may implement a file system for logicallyorganizing data. For example, the storage operating system may implementa write anywhere file layout for a volume where modified data for a filemay be written to any available location as opposed to a write-in-placearchitecture where modified data is written to the original location,thereby overwriting the previous data. In an example, the file systemmay be implemented through a file system layer that stores data of thestorage objects in an on-disk format representation that is block-based(e.g., data is stored within 4 kilobyte blocks and inodes are used toidentify files and file attributes such as creation time, accesspermissions, size and block location, etc.).

In an example, deduplication may be implemented by a deduplicationmodule associated with the storage operating system. Deduplication isperformed to improve storage efficiency. One type of deduplication isinline deduplication that ensures blocks are deduplicated before beingwritten to a storage device. Inline deduplication uses a data structure,such as an incore hash store, which maps fingerprints of data to datablocks of the storage device storing the data. Whenever data is to bewritten to the storage device, a fingerprint of that data is calculatedand the data structure is looked up using the fingerprint to findduplicates (e.g., potentially duplicate data already stored within thestorage device). If duplicate data is found, then the duplicate data isloaded from the storage device and a byte by byte comparison may beperformed to ensure that the duplicate data is an actual duplicate ofthe data to be written to the storage device. If the data to be writtenis a duplicate of the loaded duplicate data, then the data to be writtento disk is not redundantly stored to the storage device. Instead, apointer or other reference is stored in the storage device in place ofthe data to be written to the storage device. The pointer points to theduplicate data already stored in the storage device. A reference countfor the data may be incremented to indicate that the pointer nowreferences the data. If at some point the pointer no longer referencesthe data (e.g., the deduplicated data is deleted and thus no longerreferences the data in the storage device), then the reference count isdecremented. In this way, inline deduplication is able to deduplicatedata before the data is written to disk. This improves the storageefficiency of the storage device.

Background deduplication is another type of deduplication thatdeduplicates data already written to a storage device. Various types ofbackground deduplication may be implemented. In an example of backgrounddeduplication, data blocks that are duplicated between files arerearranged within storage units such that one copy of the data occupiesphysical storage. References to the single copy can be inserted into afile system structure such that all files or containers that contain thedata refer to the same instance of the data. Deduplication can beperformed on a data storage device block basis. In an example, datablocks on a storage device can be identified using a physical volumeblock number. The physical volume block number uniquely identifies aparticular block on the storage device. Additionally, blocks within afile can be identified by a file block number. The file block number isa logical block number that indicates the logical position of a blockwithin a file relative to other blocks in the file. For example, fileblock number 0 represents the first block of a file, file block number 1represents the second block, etc. File block numbers can be mapped to aphysical volume block number that is the actual data block on thestorage device. During deduplication operations, blocks in a file thatcontain the same data are deduplicated by mapping the file block numberfor the block to the same physical volume block number, and maintaininga reference count of the number of file block numbers that map to thephysical volume block number. For example, assume that file block number0 and file block number 5 of a file contain the same data, while fileblock numbers 1-4 contain unique data. File block numbers 1-4 are mappedto different physical volume block numbers. File block number 0 and fileblock number 5 may be mapped to the same physical volume block number,thereby reducing storage requirements for the file. Similarly, blocks indifferent files that contain the same data can be mapped to the samephysical volume block number. For example, if file block number 0 offile A contains the same data as file block number 3 of file B, fileblock number 0 of file A may be mapped to the same physical volume blocknumber as file block number 3 of file B.

In another example of background deduplication, a changelog is utilizedto track blocks that are written to the storage device. Backgrounddeduplication also maintains a fingerprint database (e.g., a flatmetafile) that tracks all unique block data such as by tracking afingerprint and other filesystem metadata associated with block data.Background deduplication can be periodically executed or triggered basedupon an event such as when the changelog fills beyond a threshold. Aspart of background deduplication, data in both the changelog and thefingerprint database is sorted based upon fingerprints. This ensuresthat all duplicates are sorted next to each other. The duplicates aremoved to a dup file. The unique changelog entries are moved to thefingerprint database, which will serve as duplicate data for a nextdeduplication operation. In order to optimize certain filesystemoperations needed to deduplicate a block, duplicate records in the dupfile are sorted in certain filesystem sematic order (e.g., inode numberand block number). Next, the duplicate data is loaded from the storagedevice and a whole block byte by byte comparison is performed to makesure duplicate data is an actual duplicate of the data to be written tothe storage device. After, the block in the changelog is modified topoint directly to the duplicate data as opposed to redundantly storingdata of the block.

In an example, deduplication operations performed by a datadeduplication layer of a node can be leveraged for use on another nodeduring data replication operations. For example, the first node 130 mayperform deduplication operations to provide for storage efficiency withrespect to data stored on a storage volume. The benefit of thededuplication operations performed on first node 130 can be provided tothe second node 132 with respect to the data on first node 130 that isreplicated to the second node 132. In some aspects, a data transferprotocol, referred to as the LRSE (Logical Replication for StorageEfficiency) protocol, can be used as part of replicating consistencygroup differences from the first node 130 to the second node 132. In theLRSE protocol, the second node 132 maintains a history buffer that keepstrack of data blocks that it has previously received. The history buffertracks the physical volume block numbers and file block numbersassociated with the data blocks that have been transferred from firstnode 130 to the second node 132. A request can be made of the first node130 to not transfer blocks that have already been transferred. Thus, thesecond node 132 can receive deduplicated data from the first node 130,and will not need to perform deduplication operations on thededuplicated data replicated from first node 130.

In an example, the first node 130 may preserve deduplication of datathat is transmitted from first node 130 to the distributed computingplatform 102. For example, the first node 130 may create an objectcomprising deduplicated data. The object is transmitted from the firstnode 130 to the distributed computing platform 102 for storage. In thisway, the object within the distributed computing platform 102 maintainsthe data in a deduplicated state. Furthermore, deduplication may bepreserved when deduplicated data is transmitted/replicated/mirroredbetween the client device 128, the first node 130, the distributedcomputing platform 102, and/or other nodes or devices.

In an example, compression may be implemented by a compression moduleassociated with the storage operating system. The compression module mayutilize various types of compression techniques to replace longersequences of data (e.g., frequently occurring and/or redundantsequences) with shorter sequences, such as by using Huffman coding,arithmetic coding, compression dictionaries, etc. For example, anuncompressed portion of a file may comprise “ggggnnnnnnqqqqqqqqqq”,which is compressed to become “4g6n10q”. In this way, the size of thefile can be reduced to improve storage efficiency. Compression may beimplemented for compression groups. A compression group may correspondto a compressed group of blocks. The compression group may berepresented by virtual volume block numbers. The compression group maycomprise contiguous or non-contiguous blocks.

Compression may be preserved when compressed data istransmitted/replicated/mirrored between the client device 128, a node,the distributed computing platform 102, and/or other nodes or devices.For example, an object may be create by the first node 130 to comprisecompressed data. The object is transmitted from the first node 130 tothe distributed computing platform 102 for storage. In this way, theobject within the distributed computing platform 102 maintains the datain a compressed state.

In an example, various types of synchronization may be implemented by asynchronization module associated with the storage operating system. Inan example, synchronous replication may be implemented, such as betweenthe first node 130 and the second node 132. It may be appreciated thatthe synchronization module may implement synchronous replication betweenany devices within the operating environment 100, such as between thefirst node 130 of the first cluster 134 and the third node 136 of thesecond cluster 138.

During synchronous replication, the first node 130 may receive a writeoperation from the client device 128. The write operation may target afile stored within a volume managed by the first node 130. The firstnode 130 replicates the write operation to create a replicated writeoperation. The first node 130 locally implements the write operationupon the file within the volume. The first node 130 also transmits thereplicated write operation to a synchronous replication target, such asthe second node 132 that maintains a replica volume as a replica of thevolume maintained by the first node 130. The second node 132 willexecute the replicated write operation upon the replica volume so thatfile within the volume and the replica volume comprises the same data.After, the second node 132 will transmit a success message to the firstnode 130. With synchronous replication, the first node 130 does notrespond with a success message to the client device 128 for the writeoperation until both the write operation is executed upon the volume andthe first node 130 receives the success message that the second node 132executed the replicated write operation upon the replica volume.

In another example, asynchronous replication may be implemented, such asbetween the first node 130 and the third node 136. It may be appreciatedthat the synchronization module may implement asynchronous replicationbetween any devices within the operating environment 100, such asbetween the first node 130 of the first cluster 134 and the distributedcomputing platform 102. In an example, the first node 130 may establishan asynchronous replication relationship with the third node 136. Thefirst node 130 may capture a baseline snapshot of a first volume as apoint in time representation of the first volume. The first node 130 mayutilize the baseline snapshot to perform a baseline transfer of the datawithin the first volume to the third node 136 in order to create asecond volume within the third node 136 comprising data of the firstvolume as of the point in time at which the baseline snapshot wascreated.

After the baseline transfer, the first node 130 may subsequently createsnapshots of the first volume over time. As part of asynchronousreplication, an incremental transfer is performed between the firstvolume and the second volume. In particular, a snapshot of the firstvolume is created. The snapshot is compared with a prior snapshot thatwas previously used to perform the last asynchronous transfer (e.g., thebaseline transfer or a prior incremental transfer) of data to identify adifference in data of the first volume between the snapshot and theprior snapshot (e.g., changes to the first volume since the lastasynchronous transfer). Accordingly, the difference in data isincrementally transferred from the first volume to the second volume. Inthis way, the second volume will comprise the same data as the firstvolume as of the point in time when the snapshot was created forperforming the incremental transfer. It may be appreciated that othertypes of replication may be implemented, such as semi-sync replication.

In an embodiment, the first node 130 may store data or a portion thereofwithin storage hosted by the distributed computing platform 102 bytransmitting the data within objects to the distributed computingplatform 102. In one example, the first node 130 may locally storefrequently accessed data within locally attached storage. Lessfrequently accessed data may be transmitted to the distributed computingplatform 102 for storage within a data storage tier 108. The datastorage tier 108 may store data within a service data store 120, and maystore client specific data within client data stores assigned to suchclients such as a client (1) data store 122 used to store data of aclient (1) and a client (N) data store 124 used to store data of aclient (N). The data stores may be physical storage devices or may bedefined as logical storage, such as a virtual volume, LUNs, or otherlogical organizations of data that can be defined across one or morephysical storage devices. In another example, the first node 130transmits and stores all client data to the distributed computingplatform 102. In yet another example, the client device 128 transmitsand stores the data directly to the distributed computing platform 102without the use of the first node 130.

The management of storage and access to data can be performed by one ormore virtual machines (VMs) or other storage applications that providesoftware as a service (SaaS) such as storage software services. In oneexample, an SVM may be hosted within the client device 128, within thefirst node 130, or within the distributed computing platform 102 such asby the application server tier 106. In another example, one or more VMsmay be hosted across one or more of the client device 128, the firstnode 130, and the distributed computing platform 102. The one or moreSMs may host instances of the storage operating system.

In an example, the storage operating system may be implemented for thedistributed computing platform 102. The storage operating system mayallow client devices to access data stored within the distributedcomputing platform 102 using various types of protocols, such as aNetwork File System (NFS) protocol, a Server Message Block (SMB)protocol and Common Internet File System (CIFS), and Internet SmallComputer Systems Interface (iSCSI), and/or other protocols. The storageoperating system may provide various storage services, such as disasterrecovery (e.g., the ability to non-disruptively transition clientdevices from accessing a primary node that has failed to a secondarynode that is taking over for the failed primary node), backup andarchive function, replication such as asynchronous and/or synchronousreplication, deduplication, compression, high availability storage,cloning functionality (e.g., the ability to clone a volume, such as aspace efficient flex clone), snapshot functionality (e.g., the abilityto create snapshots and restore data from snapshots), data tiering(e.g., migrating infrequently accessed data to slower/cheaper storage),encryption, managing storage across various platforms such as betweenon-premise storage systems and multiple cloud systems, etc.

In one example of the distributed computing platform 102, one or moreSVMs may be hosted by the application server tier 106. For example, aserver (1) 116 is configured to host SVMs used to execute applicationssuch as storage applications that manage the storage of data of theclient (1) within the client (1) data store 122. Thus, an SVM executingon the server (1) 116 may receive data and/or operations from the clientdevice 128 and/or the first node 130 over the network 126. The SVMexecutes a storage application and/or an instance of the storageoperating system to process the operations and/or store the data withinthe client (1) data store 122. The SVM may transmit a response back tothe client device 128 and/or the first node 130 over the network 126,such as a success message or an error message. In this way, theapplication server tier 106 may host SVMs, services, and/or otherstorage applications using the server (1) 116, the server (N) 118, etc.

A user interface tier 104 of the distributed computing platform 102 mayprovide the client device 128 and/or the first node 130 with access touser interfaces associated with the storage and access of data and/orother services provided by the distributed computing platform 102. In anexample, a service user interface 110 may be accessible from thedistributed computing platform 102 for accessing services subscribed toby clients and/or nodes, such as data replication services, applicationhosting services, data security services, human resource services,warehouse tracking services, accounting services, etc. For example,client user interfaces may be provided to corresponding clients, such asa client (1) user interface 112, a client (N) user interface 114, etc.The client (1) can access various services and resources subscribed toby the client (1) through the client (1) user interface 112, such asaccess to a web service, a development environment, a human resourceapplication, a warehouse tracking application, and/or other services andresources provided by the application server tier 106, which may usedata stored within the data storage tier 108.

The client device 128 and/or the first node 130 may subscribe to certaintypes and amounts of services and resources provided by the distributedcomputing platform 102. For example, the client device 128 may establisha subscription to have access to three virtual machines, a certainamount of storage, a certain type/amount of data redundancy, a certaintype/amount of data security, certain service level agreements (SLAs)and service level objectives (SLOs), latency guarantees, bandwidthguarantees, access to execute or host certain applications, etc.Similarly, the first node 130 can establish a subscription to haveaccess to certain services and resources of the distributed computingplatform 102.

As shown, a variety of clients, such as the client device 128 and thefirst node 130, incorporating and/or incorporated into a variety ofcomputing devices may communicate with the distributed computingplatform 102 through one or more networks, such as the network 126. Forexample, a client may incorporate and/or be incorporated into a clientapplication (e.g., software) implemented at least in part by one or moreof the computing devices.

Examples of suitable computing devices include personal computers,server computers, desktop computers, nodes, storage servers, nodes,laptop computers, notebook computers, tablet computers or personaldigital assistants (PDAs), smart phones, cell phones, and consumerelectronic devices incorporating one or more computing devicecomponents, such as one or more electronic processors, microprocessors,central processing units (CPU), or controllers. Examples of suitablenetworks include networks utilizing wired and/or wireless communicationtechnologies and networks operating in accordance with any suitablenetworking and/or communication protocol (e.g., the Internet). In usecases involving the delivery of customer support services, the computingdevices noted represent the endpoint of the customer support deliveryprocess, i.e., the consumer's device.

The distributed computing platform 102, such as a multi-tenant businessdata processing platform or cloud computing environment, may includemultiple processing tiers, including the user interface tier 104, theapplication server tier 106, and a data storage tier 108. The userinterface tier 104 may maintain multiple user interfaces, includinggraphical user interfaces and/or web-based interfaces. The userinterfaces may include the service user interface 110 for a service toprovide access to applications and data for a client (e.g., a “tenant”)of the service, as well as one or more user interfaces that have beenspecialized/customized in accordance with user specific requirements,which may be accessed via one or more APIs.

The service user interface 110 may include components enabling a tenantto administer the tenant's participation in the functions andcapabilities provided by the distributed computing platform 102, such asaccessing data, causing execution of specific data processingoperations, etc. Each processing tier may be implemented with a set ofcomputers, virtualized computing environments such as a virtual machineor storage virtual server, and/or computer components including computerservers and processors, and may perform various functions, methods,processes, or operations as determined by the execution of a softwareapplication or set of instructions.

The data storage tier 108 may include one or more data stores, which mayinclude the service data store 120 and one or more client data stores.Each client data store may contain tenant-specific data that is used aspart of providing a range of tenant-specific business and storageservices or functions, including but not limited to ERP, CRM, eCommerce,Human Resources management, payroll, storage services, etc. Data storesmay be implemented with any suitable data storage technology, includingstructured query language (SQL) based relational database managementsystems (RDBMS), file systems hosted by operating systems, objectstorage, etc.

In accordance with one embodiment of the invention, the distributedcomputing platform 102 may be a multi-tenant and service platformoperated by an entity in order to provide multiple tenants with a set ofbusiness related applications, data storage, and functionality. Theseapplications and functionality may include ones that a business uses tomanage various aspects of its operations. For example, the applicationsand functionality may include providing web-based access to businessinformation systems, thereby allowing a user with a browser and anInternet or intranet connection to view, enter, process, or modifycertain types of business information or any other type of information.

A clustered network environment 200 that may implement one or moreaspects of the techniques described and illustrated herein is shown inFIG. 2. The clustered network environment 200 includes data storageapparatuses 202(1)-202(n) that are coupled over a cluster or clusterfabric 204 that includes one or more communication network(s) andfacilitates communication between the data storage apparatuses202(1)-202(n) (and one or more modules, components, etc. therein, suchas, node computing devices 206(1)-206(n), for example), although anynumber of other elements or components can also be included in theclustered network environment 200 in other examples. This technologyprovides a number of advantages including methods, non-transitorycomputer readable media, and computing devices that implement thetechniques described herein.

In this example, node computing devices 206(1)-206(n) can be primary orlocal storage controllers or secondary or remote storage controllersthat provide client devices 208(1)-208(n) with access to data storedwithin data storage devices 210(1)-210(n) and cloud storage device(s)236. The node computing devices 206(1)-206(n) may be implemented ashardware, software (e.g., a virtual machine), or combination thereof.

The data storage apparatuses 202(1)-202(n) and/or node computing devices206(1)-206(n) of the examples described and illustrated herein are notlimited to any particular geographic areas and can be clustered locallyand/or remotely via a cloud network, or not clustered in other examples.Thus, in one example the data storage apparatuses 202(1)-202(n) and/ornode computing device 206(1)-206(n) can be distributed over a pluralityof storage systems located in a plurality of geographic locations (e.g.,located on-premise, located within a cloud computing environment, etc.);while in another example a clustered network can include data storageapparatuses 202(1)-202(n) and/or node computing device 206(1)-206(n)residing in a same geographic location (e.g., in a single on-site rack).

In the illustrated example, one or more of the client devices208(1)-208(n), which may be, for example, personal computers (PCs),computing devices used for storage (e.g., storage servers), or othercomputers or peripheral devices, are coupled to the respective datastorage apparatuses 202(1)-202(n) by network connections 212(1)-212(n).Network connections 212(1)-212(n) may include a local area network (LAN)or wide area network (WAN) (i.e., a cloud network), for example, thatutilize TCP/IP and/or one or more Network Attached Storage (NAS)protocols, such as a Common Internet Filesystem (CIFS) protocol or aNetwork Filesystem (NFS) protocol to exchange data packets, a StorageArea Network (SAN) protocol, such as Small Computer System Interface(SCSI) or Fiber Channel Protocol (FCP), an object protocol, such assimple storage service (S3), and/or non-volatile memory express (NVMe),for example.

Illustratively, the client devices 208(1)-208(n) may be general-purposecomputers running applications and may interact with the data storageapparatuses 202(1)-202(n) using a client/server model for exchange ofinformation. That is, the client devices 208(1)-208(n) may request datafrom the data storage apparatuses 202(1)-202(n) (e.g., data on one ofthe data storage devices 210(1)-210(n) managed by a network storagecontroller configured to process I/O commands issued by the clientdevices 208(1)-208(n)), and the data storage apparatuses 202(1)-202(n)may return results of the request to the client devices 208(1)-208(n)via the network connections 212(1)-212(n).

The node computing devices 206(1)-206(n) of the data storage apparatuses202(1)-202(n) can include network or host nodes that are interconnectedas a cluster to provide data storage and management services, such as toan enterprise having remote locations, cloud storage (e.g., a storageendpoint may be stored within cloud storage device(s) 236), etc., forexample. Such node computing devices 206(1)-206(n) can be attached tothe cluster fabric 204 at a connection point, redistribution point, orcommunication endpoint, for example. One or more of the node computingdevices 206(1)-206(n) may be capable of sending, receiving, and/orforwarding information over a network communications channel, and couldcomprise any type of device that meets any or all of these criteria.

In an example, the node computing devices 206(1) and 206(n) may beconfigured according to a disaster recovery configuration whereby asurviving node provides switchover access to the storage devices210(1)-210(n) in the event a disaster occurs at a disaster storage site(e.g., the node computing device 206(1) provides client device 212(n)with switchover data access to data storage devices 210(n) in the eventa disaster occurs at the second storage site). In other examples, thenode computing device 206(n) can be configured according to an archivalconfiguration and/or the node computing devices 206(1)-206(n) can beconfigured based on another type of replication arrangement (e.g., tofacilitate load sharing). Additionally, while two node computing devicesare illustrated in FIG. 2, any number of node computing devices or datastorage apparatuses can be included in other examples in other types ofconfigurations or arrangements.

As illustrated in the clustered network environment 200, node computingdevices 206(1)-206(n) can include various functional components thatcoordinate to provide a distributed storage architecture. For example,the node computing devices 206(1)-206(n) can include network modules214(1)-214(n) and disk modules 216(1)-216(n). Network modules214(1)-214(n) can be configured to allow the node computing devices206(1)-206(n) (e.g., network storage controllers) to connect with clientdevices 208(1)-208(n) over the storage network connections212(1)-212(n), for example, allowing the client devices 208(1)-208(n) toaccess data stored in the clustered network environment 200.

Further, the network modules 214(1)-214(n) can provide connections withone or more other components through the cluster fabric 204. Forexample, the network module 214(1) of node computing device 206(1) canaccess the data storage device 210(n) by sending a request via thecluster fabric 204 through the disk module 216(n) of node computingdevice 206(n). The cluster fabric 204 can include one or more localand/or wide area computing networks (i.e., cloud networks) embodied asInfiniband, Fibre Channel (FC), or Ethernet networks, for example,although other types of networks supporting other protocols can also beused.

Disk modules 216(1)-216(n) can be configured to connect data storagedevices 210(1)-210(2), such as disks or arrays of disks, SSDs, flashmemory, or some other form of data storage, to the node computingdevices 206(1)-206(n). Often, disk modules 216(1)-216(n) communicatewith the data storage devices 210(1)-210(n) according to the SANprotocol, such as SCSI or FCP, for example, although other protocols canalso be used. Thus, as seen from an operating system on node computingdevices 206(1)-206(n), the data storage devices 210(1)-210(n) can appearas locally attached. In this manner, different node computing devices206(1)-206(n), etc. may access data blocks, files, or objects throughthe operating system, rather than expressly requesting abstract files.

While the clustered network environment 200 illustrates an equal numberof network modules 214(1)-214( 2 ) and disk modules 216(1)-216(n), otherexamples may include a differing number of these modules. For example,there may be a plurality of network and disk modules interconnected in acluster that do not have a one-to-one correspondence between the networkand disk modules. That is, different node computing devices can have adifferent number of network and disk modules, and the same nodecomputing device can have a different number of network modules thandisk modules.

Further, one or more of the client devices 208(1)-208(n) can benetworked with the node computing devices 206(1)-206(n) in the cluster,over the storage connections 212(1)-212(n). As an example, respectiveclient devices 208(1)-208(n) that are networked to a cluster may requestservices (e.g., exchanging of information in the form of data packets)of node computing devices 206(1)-206(n) in the cluster, and the nodecomputing devices 206(1)-206(n) can return results of the requestedservices to the client devices 208(1)-208(n). In one example, the clientdevices 208(1)-208(n) can exchange information with the network modules214(1)-214(n) residing in the node computing devices 206(1)-206(n)(e.g., network hosts) in the data storage apparatuses 202(1)-202(n).

In one example, the storage apparatuses 202(1)-202(n) host aggregatescorresponding to physical local and remote data storage devices, such aslocal flash or disk storage in the data storage devices 210(1)-210(n),for example. One or more of the data storage devices 210(1)-210(n) caninclude mass storage devices, such as disks of a disk array. The disksmay comprise any type of mass storage devices, including but not limitedto magnetic disk drives, flash memory, and any other similar mediaadapted to store information, including, for example, data and/or parityinformation.

The aggregates include volumes 218(1)-218(n) in this example, althoughany number of volumes can be included in the aggregates. The volumes218(1)-218(n) are virtual data stores or storage objects that define anarrangement of storage and one or more filesystems within the clusterednetwork environment 200. Volumes 218(1)-218(n) can span a portion of adisk or other storage device, a collection of disks, or portions ofdisks, for example, and typically define an overall logical arrangementof data storage. In one example volumes 218(1)-218(n) can include storeduser data as one or more files, blocks, or objects that reside in ahierarchical directory structure within the volumes 218(1)-218(n).

Volumes 218(1)-218(n) are typically configured in formats that may beassociated with particular storage systems, and respective volumeformats typically comprise features that provide functionality to thevolumes 218(1)-218(n), such as providing the ability for volumes218(1)-218(n) to form clusters, among other functionality. Optionally,one or more of the volumes 218(1)-218(n) can be in composite aggregatesand can extend between one or more of the data storage devices210(1)-210(n) and one or more of the cloud storage device(s) 236 toprovide tiered storage, for example, and other arrangements can also beused in other examples.

In one example, to facilitate access to data stored on the disks orother structures of the data storage devices 210(1)-210(n), a filesystemmay be implemented that logically organizes the information as ahierarchical structure of directories and files. In this example,respective files may be implemented as a set of disk blocks of aparticular size that are configured to store information, whereasdirectories may be implemented as specially formatted files in whichinformation about other files and directories are stored.

Data can be stored as files or objects within a physical volume and/or avirtual volume, which can be associated with respective volumeidentifiers. The physical volumes correspond to at least a portion ofphysical storage devices, such as the data storage devices 210(1)-210(n)(e.g., a Redundant Array of Independent (or Inexpensive) Disks (RAIDsystem)) whose address, addressable space, location, etc. does notchange. Typically the location of the physical volumes does not changein that the range of addresses used to access it generally remainsconstant.

Virtual volumes, in contrast, can be stored over an aggregate ofdisparate portions of different physical storage devices. Virtualvolumes may be a collection of different available portions of differentphysical storage device locations, such as some available space fromdisks, for example. It will be appreciated that since the virtualvolumes are not “tied” to any one particular storage device, virtualvolumes can be said to include a layer of abstraction or virtualization,which allows it to be resized and/or flexible in some regards.

Further, virtual volumes can include one or more logical unit numbers(LUNs), directories, Qtrees, files, and/or other storage objects, forexample. Among other things, these features, but more particularly theLUNs, allow the disparate memory locations within which data is storedto be identified, for example, and grouped as data storage unit. Assuch, the LUNs may be characterized as constituting a virtual disk ordrive upon which data within the virtual volumes is stored within anaggregate. For example, LUNs are often referred to as virtual drives,such that they emulate a hard drive, while they actually comprise datablocks stored in various parts of a volume.

In one example, the data storage devices 210(1)-210(n) can have one ormore physical ports, wherein each physical port can be assigned a targetaddress (e.g., SCSI target address). To represent respective volumes, atarget address on the data storage devices 210(1)-210(n) can be used toidentify one or more of the LUNs. Thus, for example, when one of thenode computing devices 206(1)-206(n) connects to a volume, a connectionbetween the one of the node computing devices 206(1)-206(n) and one ormore of the LUNs underlying the volume is created.

Respective target addresses can identify multiple of the LUNs, such thata target address can represent multiple volumes. The I/O interface,which can be implemented as circuitry and/or software in a storageadapter or as executable code residing in memory and executed by aprocessor, for example, can connect to volumes by using one or moreaddresses that identify the one or more of the LUNs.

Referring to FIG. 3, node computing device 206(1) in this particularexample includes processor(s) 300, a memory 302, a network adapter 304,a cluster access adapter 306, and a storage adapter 308 interconnectedby a system bus 310. In other examples, the node computing device 206(1)comprises a virtual machine, such as a virtual storage machine. The nodecomputing device 206(1) also includes a storage operating system 312installed in the memory 302 that can, for example, implement a RAID dataloss protection and recovery scheme to optimize reconstruction of dataof a failed disk or drive in an array, along with other functionalitysuch as deduplication, compression, snapshot creation, data mirroring,synchronous replication, asynchronous replication, encryption, etc. Insome examples, the node computing device 206(n) is substantially thesame in structure and/or operation as node computing device 206(1),although the node computing device 206(n) can also include a differentstructure and/or operation in one or more aspects than the nodecomputing device 206(1).

The network adapter 304 in this example includes the mechanical,electrical and signaling circuitry needed to connect the node computingdevice 206(1) to one or more of the client devices 208(1)-208(n) overnetwork connections 212(1)-212(n), which may comprise, among otherthings, a point-to-point connection or a shared medium, such as a localarea network. In some examples, the network adapter 304 furthercommunicates (e.g., using TCP/IP) via the cluster fabric 204 and/oranother network (e.g. a WAN) (not shown) with cloud storage device(s)236 to process storage operations associated with data stored thereon.

The storage adapter 308 cooperates with the storage operating system 312executing on the node computing device 206(1) to access informationrequested by one of the client devices 208(1)-208(n) (e.g., to accessdata on a data storage device 210(1)-210(n) managed by a network storagecontroller). The information may be stored on any type of attached arrayof writeable media such as magnetic disk drives, flash memory, and/orany other similar media adapted to store information.

In the exemplary data storage devices 210(1)-210(n), information can bestored in data blocks on disks. The storage adapter 308 can include I/Ointerface circuitry that couples to the disks over an I/O interconnectarrangement, such as a storage area network (SAN) protocol (e.g., SmallComputer System Interface (SCSI), Internet SCSI (iSCSI), hyperSCSI,Fiber Channel Protocol (FCP)). The information is retrieved by thestorage adapter 308 and, if necessary, processed by the processor(s) 300(or the storage adapter 308 itself) prior to being forwarded over thesystem bus 310 to the network adapter 304 (and/or the cluster accessadapter 306 if sending to another node computing device in the cluster)where the information is formatted into a data packet and returned to arequesting one of the client devices 208(1)-208(2) and/or sent toanother node computing device attached via the cluster fabric 204. Insome examples, a storage driver 314 in the memory 302 interfaces withthe storage adapter to facilitate interactions with the data storagedevices 210(1)-210(n).

The storage operating system 312 can also manage communications for thenode computing device 206(1) among other devices that may be in aclustered network, such as attached to a cluster fabric 204. Thus, thenode computing device 206(1) can respond to client device requests tomanage data on one of the data storage devices 210(1)-210(n) or cloudstorage device(s) 236 (e.g., or additional clustered devices) inaccordance with the client device requests.

The file system module 318 of the storage operating system 312 canestablish and manage one or more filesystems including software code anddata structures that implement a persistent hierarchical namespace offiles and directories, for example. As an example, when a new datastorage device (not shown) is added to a clustered network system, thefile system module 318 is informed where, in an existing directory tree,new files associated with the new data storage device are to be stored.This is often referred to as “mounting” a filesystem.

In the example node computing device 206(1), memory 302 can includestorage locations that are addressable by the processor(s) 300 andadapters 304, 306, and 308 for storing related software application codeand data structures. The processor(s) 300 and adapters 304, 306, and 308may, for example, include processing elements and/or logic circuitryconfigured to execute the software code and manipulate the datastructures.

The storage operating system 312, portions of which are typicallyresident in the memory 302 and executed by the processor(s) 300, invokesstorage operations in support of a file service implemented by the nodecomputing device 206(1). Other processing and memory mechanisms,including various computer readable media, may be used for storingand/or executing application instructions pertaining to the techniquesdescribed and illustrated herein. For example, the storage operatingsystem 312 can also utilize one or more control files (not shown) to aidin the provisioning of virtual machines.

In this particular example, the memory 302 also includes a moduleconfigured to implement the techniques described herein.

The examples of the technology described and illustrated herein may beembodied as one or more non-transitory computer or machine readablemedia, such as the memory 302, having machine or processor-executableinstructions stored thereon for one or more aspects of the presenttechnology, which when executed by processor(s), such as processor(s)300, cause the processor(s) to carry out the steps necessary toimplement the methods of this technology, as described and illustratedwith the examples herein. In some examples, the executable instructionsare configured to perform one or more steps of a method described andillustrated later.

One embodiment of load balancing for IP failover is illustrated by anexemplary method 400 of FIG. 4 and further described in conjunction withsystem 500 of FIGS. 5A and 5B. FIG. 5A illustrates a computingenvironment, such as a cloud computing environment 506 hosted by a3^(rd) party cloud service provider, where a first node 532 and a secondnode 538 are operating under normal operation conditions, such as wherethe first node 532 is operational and has not failed. The first node 532and the second node 538 may comprise nodes maintained on behalf of aservice provider different than the 3^(rd) party cloud service provider,such as nodes maintained on behalf of a storage service provider. Thefirst node 532 and/or the second node 538 may be implemented as virtualmachines, hardware, software, or combination thereof.

The first node 532 and the second node 538 may be configured as highavailability partners. In particular, the first node 532 may beconfigured to actively process requests from client devices, such asread/write operations targeting a first volume 530 (a destination datastructure) maintained by the first node 532 for storing data on behalfof a client device 502. The second node 538 may be configured topassively wait to take over for (failover from) the first node 532 inthe event the first node 532 is unable to process requests such as dueto a failure. The second node 538 may or may not process other requestsfrom client devices while passively waiting to take over for the firstnode 532. It may be appreciated that any number of high availabilitypartners may be maintained within the cloud computing environment 506and/or that any number of nodes may be grouped into a high availabilitypairing or other grouping of nodes (e.g., one active node with multiplepassive nodes).

The cloud service may host a load balancer 510 within the cloudcomputing environment 506. The load balancer 510 may maintain a backendaddress pool 518 comprising backend addresses of nodes to which load isto be distributed, such as a first backend address for the first node532 (e.g., a first IP address of a virtual machine network interfacecard of the first node 532), a second backend address for the secondnode 538 (e.g., a second IP address of a virtual machine networkinterface card of the second node 538), etc. In an embodiment, a singlebackend pool of backend addresses are maintained for the nodes. Inanother embodiment, a plurality of backend pools of backend addressesare maintained for the nodes (e.g., a backend pool for each highavailability pair of nodes).

The load balancer 510 may be configured with a frontend addressconfiguration 516. The frontend address configuration 516 may includeone or more frontend addresses (e.g., virtual IPs) that serve as ingressfor incoming requests from client devices. For example, the clientdevice 502 may transmit a first request 504 to a storage service hostedby the first node 532 within the cloud computing environment 506. Thefirst request 504 may specify a frontend address as a destinationaddress of the first request 504. The first request 504 may bereceived/intercepted by the load balancer 510 through a first frontendaddress configuration 508 corresponding to the frontend addressspecified by the first request 504.

The load balancer 510 is configured with load balancer rules 512 thatmap frontend addresses to backend addresses of nodes to which requestsare to be routed. For example, the load balancer rules 512 may map thefrontend address, specified by the first request 504, to the firstbackend address of the first node 532 for routing of requests to thefirst node 532 when the first node 532 is operational. The load balancerrules 512 may map the frontend address to the second backend address ofthe second node 538 for routing of requests to the second node 538 whenthe first node 532 has failed. In this way, the first backend address ofthe first node 532 is identified as a routing destination to which thefirst request 504 is to be routed by the load balancer 510, at 402. Thefirst node 532 may comprise a primary network interface 526corresponding to the first backend address. The primary networkinterface 526 has the same address as the first backend addressspecified within the backend address pool 518 for the first node 532.

At 404, the load balancer 510 routes the first request 504 through thecloud computing environment 506 to the primary network interface 526 ofthe first node 532 using the first backend address. In an example, thefirst request 504 is routed to a cloud computing environment NIC 522attached to the first node 532 and corresponding to a port 524 of thefirst node 532. The first node 532 has a loopback interface 540 with anaddress matching the frontend address specified by the first request504. Because the frontend address is maintained within the first request504 as the destination address corresponding to a first volume 530, thefirst request 504 is routed by the loopback interface 540 to the firstvolume 530. This may be accomplished by enabling a floating addressoption for routing requests to backend addresses of nodes by the loadbalancer 510 while retaining the frontend address of the requests as therequest destination corresponding to a destination data structure, suchas the first volume 530, maintained by the nodes to which the requestsare routed by the load balancer 510 using the backend addresses.

The load balancer 510 may be configured with health probes 514 used todetermine whether nodes are operational or experiencing issues, such asfailures. The load balancer 510 may transmit a health probe to a firstport of the first node 532 using the first backend address of the firstnode 532. For example, the health probe may be transmitted to theprimary network interface 526 by routing the health probe to the cloudcomputing environment NIC 522, corresponding to the port 524, using thefirst backend address of the first node 532. Based upon the firstbackend address, the health probe is routed through the primary networkinterface 526 to a health probe process 528 executing on the first node532. In an example, the health probe is transmitted to the first node532 for routing to the health probe process 528 based upon a healthprobe definition. The health probe definition may specify definedintervals (e.g., every 4 seconds) at which health probes are to betransmitted by the load balancer to nodes. The health probe definitionmay specify a threshold number of failures to receive acknowledgments tohealth probes before determining that a node has encountered the issue(e.g., a determination that the first node 532 has failed and a failovershould occur after 4 failed health probes where no acknowledgements arereceived from the first node 532 for 4 consecutive health probes sent tothe first node 532).

The load balancer 510 may transmit a health probe to the second backendaddress of the second node 538 for determining whether the second node538 is operational. For example, the load balancer 510 transmits thehealth probe to a primary network interface 534 of the second node 538by routing the health probe to the cloud computing environment NIC 522,corresponding to the port 524, using the second backend address of thesecond node 538. Based upon the second backend address, the health probeis routed through the primary network interface 534 to a health probeprocess 536 executing on the second node 538. In an example, the healthprobe is transmitted to the second node 538 for routing to the healthprobe process 536 based upon the health probe definition. In this way,the health probe definition is used to determine a frequency oftransmitting health probes and to define when a failure of a node hasoccurred.

FIG. 5B illustrates the first node 532 experiencing a failure 560, suchthat the first node 532 is unable to adequately process requests fromclient devices 502. For example, the second node 538 may determine thatthe first node 532 has failed 560, such as due to a communication lossover an interconnect network. Accordingly, the second node 538 initiatesa failover. As part of the failover, the second node 538 starts tolisten to health probes being sent to a port of the first node 532(e.g., a health probe sent to the port 524 using the first backendaddress of the first node 532). In this way, the second node 538 willsend an acknowledgement to a health probe in place of the first node532, which may provide an indication to the load balancer 510 that thefirst node 532 has failed (e.g., the acknowledgement may trigger theload balancer 510 to redirect requests to the second backend address ofthe second node 538). Also, the loopback interface 540 associated withthe frontend address is migrated from the first node 532 to the secondnode 538, along with the first volume 530 so that the second node 538can process requests targeting the first volume 530 in place of thefirst node 532 that is unable to process such requests. Furthermore, theload balancer 510 may determine that the first node 532 has failed 560based upon the threshold number of failed health probes occurring (e.g.,a failure to receive an acknowledgement for at least 4 consecutivehealth probes).

Upon determining that the first node 532 has failed 560, the loadbalancer 510 utilizes the load balancer rules 512 to determine thatrequests, such as a second request 550 from the client device 502 andhaving the frontend address, are to be routed to the second backendaddress of the second node 538 while the first node 532 has failed 560.Accordingly, the second request 550 is routed through the cloudcomputing environment 506 by the load balancer 510 to the primarynetwork interface 534 of the second node 538 using the second backendaddress. Because the second request 550 maintains the frontend addressas a destination address, the migrated loopback interface 540, havingthe address matching the frontend address, routes the second request 550to the migrated first volume 530 based upon the migrated loopbackinterface 540 having the same address as the frontend address specifiedby the second request 550. In this way, failover from the first node 532to the second node 538 can be quickly performed, such as within seconds.

Still another embodiment involves a computer-readable medium 600comprising processor-executable instructions configured to implement oneor more of the techniques presented herein. An example embodiment of acomputer-readable medium or a computer-readable device that is devisedin these ways is illustrated in FIG. 6, wherein the implementationcomprises a computer-readable medium 608, such as a compactdisc-recordable (CD-R), a digital versatile disc-recordable (DVD-R),flash drive, a platter of a hard disk drive, etc., on which is encodedcomputer-readable data 606. This computer-readable data 606, such asbinary data comprising at least one of a zero or a one, in turncomprises a processor-executable computer instructions 604 configured tooperate according to one or more of the principles set forth herein. Insome embodiments, the processor-executable computer instructions 604 areconfigured to perform a method 602, such as at least some of theexemplary method 400 of FIG. 4, for example. In some embodiments, theprocessor-executable computer instructions 604 are configured toimplement a system, such as at least some of the exemplary system 500 ofFIGS. 5A and 5B, for example. Many such computer-readable media arecontemplated to operate in accordance with the techniques presentedherein.

In an embodiment, the described methods and/or their equivalents may beimplemented with computer executable instructions. Thus, in anembodiment, a non-transitory computer readable/storage medium isconfigured with stored computer executable instructions of analgorithm/executable application that when executed by a machine(s)cause the machine(s) (and/or associated components) to perform themethod. Example machines include but are not limited to a processor, acomputer, a server operating in a cloud computing system, a serverconfigured in a Software as a Service (SaaS) architecture, a smartphone, and so on). In an embodiment, a computing device is implementedwith one or more executable algorithms that are configured to performany of the disclosed methods.

It will be appreciated that processes, architectures and/or proceduresdescribed herein can be implemented in hardware, firmware and/orsoftware. It will also be appreciated that the provisions set forthherein may apply to any type of special-purpose computer (e.g., filehost, storage server and/or storage serving appliance) and/orgeneral-purpose computer, including a standalone computer or portionthereof, embodied as or including a storage system. Moreover, theteachings herein can be configured to a variety of storage systemarchitectures including, but not limited to, a network-attached storageenvironment and/or a storage area network and disk assembly directlyattached to a client or host computer. Storage system should thereforebe taken broadly to include such arrangements in addition to anysubsystems configured to perform a storage function and associated withother equipment or systems.

In some embodiments, methods described and/or illustrated in thisdisclosure may be realized in whole or in part on computer-readablemedia. Computer readable media can include processor-executableinstructions configured to implement one or more of the methodspresented herein, and may include any mechanism for storing this datathat can be thereafter read by a computer system. Examples of computerreadable media include (hard) drives (e.g., accessible via networkattached storage (NAS)), Storage Area Networks (SAN), volatile andnon-volatile memory, such as read-only memory (ROM), random-accessmemory (RAM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory(EEPROM) and/or flash memory, compact disk read only memory (CD-ROM)s,CD-Rs, compact disk re-writeable (CD-RW)s, DVDs, cassettes, magnetictape, magnetic disk storage, optical or non-optical data storage devicesand/or any other medium which can be used to store data.

Although the subject matter has been described in language specific tostructural features or methodological acts, it is to be understood thatthe subject matter defined in the appended claims is not necessarilylimited to the specific features or acts described above. Rather, thespecific features and acts described above are disclosed as exampleforms of implementing at least some of the claims.

Various operations of embodiments are provided herein. The order inwhich some or all of the operations are described should not beconstrued to imply that these operations are necessarily orderdependent. Alternative ordering will be appreciated given the benefit ofthis description. Further, it will be understood that not all operationsare necessarily present in each embodiment provided herein. Also, itwill be understood that not all operations are necessary in someembodiments.

Furthermore, the claimed subject matter is implemented as a method,apparatus, or article of manufacture using standard application orengineering techniques to produce software, firmware, hardware, or anycombination thereof to control a computer to implement the disclosedsubject matter. The term “article of manufacture” as used herein isintended to encompass a computer application accessible from anycomputer-readable device, carrier, or media. Of course, manymodifications may be made to this configuration without departing fromthe scope or spirit of the claimed subject matter.

As used in this application, the terms “component”, “module,” “system”,“interface”, and the like are generally intended to refer to acomputer-related entity, either hardware, a combination of hardware andsoftware, software, or software in execution. For example, a componentincludes a process running on a processor, a processor, an object, anexecutable, a thread of execution, an application, or a computer. By wayof illustration, both an application running on a controller and thecontroller can be a component. One or more components residing within aprocess or thread of execution and a component may be localized on onecomputer or distributed between two or more computers.

Moreover, “exemplary” is used herein to mean serving as an example,instance, illustration, etc., and not necessarily as advantageous. Asused in this application, “or” is intended to mean an inclusive “or”rather than an exclusive “or”. In addition, “a” and “an” as used in thisapplication are generally be construed to mean “one or more” unlessspecified otherwise or clear from context to be directed to a singularform. Also, at least one of A and B and/or the like generally means A orB and/or both A and B. Furthermore, to the extent that “includes”,“having”, “has”, “with”, or variants thereof are used, such terms areintended to be inclusive in a manner similar to the term “comprising”.

Many modifications may be made to the instant disclosure withoutdeparting from the scope or spirit of the claimed subject matter. Unlessspecified otherwise, “first,” “second,” or the like are not intended toimply a temporal aspect, a spatial aspect, an ordering, etc. Rather,such terms are merely used as identifiers, names, etc. for features,elements, items, etc. For example, a first set of information and asecond set of information generally correspond to set of information Aand set of information B or two different or two identical sets ofinformation or the same set of information.

Also, although the disclosure has been shown and described with respectto one or more implementations, equivalent alterations and modificationswill occur to others skilled in the art based upon a reading andunderstanding of this specification and the annexed drawings. Thedisclosure includes all such modifications and alterations and islimited only by the scope of the following claims. In particular regardto the various functions performed by the above described components(e.g., elements, resources, etc.), the terms used to describe suchcomponents are intended to correspond, unless otherwise indicated, toany component which performs the specified function of the describedcomponent (e.g., that is functionally equivalent), even though notstructurally equivalent to the disclosed structure. In addition, while aparticular feature of the disclosure may have been disclosed withrespect to only one of several implementations, such feature may becombined with one or more other features of the other implementations asmay be desired and advantageous for any given or particular application.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: generating a health probebased upon a health probe definition; identifying a health probe processexecuting on a first node; and transmitting the health probe to a portof the first node for routing through a node management logicalinterface to the health probe process executing on the first node. 2.The method of claim 1, comprising: generating and transmitting healthprobes at defined intervals based upon the health probe definition. 3.The method of claim 1, comprising: determining that the first node hasencountered an issue based upon a failure to receive acknowledgement ofa threshold number of health probes back from the health probe process.4. The method of claim 3, comprising: redirecting requests to a secondbackend address of a second node based upon a load balancer rule.
 5. Themethod of claim 4, wherein the load balancer rule specifies thatrequests having a frontend address are to be rerouted from being routedto a first backend address of the first node to being routed to thesecond backend address based upon the first node encountering the issue.6. The method of claim 5, comprising: migrating a data logical interfaceand a destination data structure from the first node to the second node.7. The method of claim 4, comprising: receiving an acknowledgement fromthe second node to the health probe based upon the second node listeningto the port upon the second node determining that the first nodeencountered the issue.
 8. The method of claim 5, wherein the loadbalancer is triggered to redirect the requests to the second backendaddress based upon receiving the acknowledgement from the second node.9. The method of claim 1, comprising: generating one or more nodes forprocessing requests and responding to health probes.
 10. The method ofclaim 9, wherein the one or more nodes may comprise virtual machinescomprising health probe processes.
 11. The method of claim 1,comprising: in response to the first node failing, redirecting requeststo a second node.
 12. A non-transitory machine readable mediumcomprising instructions for performing a method, which when executed bya machine, causes the machine to: generate a health probe based upon ahealth probe definition; identify a health probe process executing on afirst node; and transmit the health probe to a port of the first nodefor routing through a node management logical interface to the healthprobe process executing on the first node.
 13. The non-transitorymachine readable medium of claim 12, wherein the instructions cause themachine to: generate and transmitting health probes at defined intervalsbased upon the health probe definition.
 14. The non-transitory machinereadable medium of claim 12, wherein the instructions cause the machineto: determine that the first node has encountered an issue based upon afailure to receive acknowledgement of a threshold number of healthprobes back from the health probe process.
 15. The non-transitorymachine readable medium of claim 14, wherein the instructions cause themachine to: redirect requests to a second backend address of a secondnode based upon a load balancer rule.
 16. The non-transitory machinereadable medium of claim 15, wherein the load balancer rule specifiesthat requests having a frontend address are to be rerouted from beingrouted to a first backend address of the first node to being routed tothe second backend address based upon the first node encountering theissue.
 17. A computing device comprising: a memory comprisinginstructions; and a processor coupled to the memory, the processorconfigured to execute the instructions to cause the processor to:generate a health probe based upon a health probe definition; identify ahealth probe process executing on a first node; and transmit the healthprobe to a port of the first node for routing through a node managementlogical interface to the health probe process executing on the firstnode.
 18. The computing device of claim 17, wherein the instructionscause the processor to: generate and transmitting health probes atdefined intervals based upon the health probe definition.
 19. Thecomputing device of claim 17, wherein the instructions cause theprocessor to: determine that the first node has encountered an issuebased upon a failure to receive acknowledgement of a threshold number ofhealth probes back from the health probe process.
 20. The computingdevice of claim 19, wherein the instructions cause the processor to:redirect requests to a second backend address of a second node basedupon a load balancer rule.